Just because I want to, and because I didn’t last year, we’ll talk about Rhett and Scarlett, simply because I love them so. Talk about looking for love in all the wrong places!!
For the two of you out there who’ve never heard of Gone With The Wind, it’s one of my top 10 favorite books. I read it every December, and have done so for nearly 30 years. I have parts of it memorized.
I know, it’s part of my crazy. Leave it alone.
Scarlett O’Hara, a 16 year old Southern Belle at the start of the War Between The States, is crazy for a neighbor boy – who looks at least 20 years older than she does in the movie – and thinks her world will end if she doesn’t marry him. So, on the day of the big assed barbeque at his Daddy’s place, she decides to declare her love for him.
She finds out the night before that his engagement to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton, is to be announced that same day. With time a’wastin’, Scarlett skips the ladies’ nap and sneaks into the library to tell Ashley she loves him, and that Melly is a bitch and ah hate hur a mealy mouthed little nothin’, and Scarlett could rock his world.
Well, the nasty Rhett Butler hears this conversation and Scarlett is compromised and humiliated. Rhett falls for the snippy Scarlett on the spot. Scarlett vows to hate both Ashley and Rhett for ‘evah‘, and, oh, yeah, the ‘Wawh‘ starts.
Ashley marries Melly, and in spite, Scarlett marries Melly’s panty-waisted brother, Charles, who promptly knocks her UP and dies of the measles in the ‘wawh’.
Scarlett, “16 and Pregnant”, is pissed beyond belief. Not only does she not have Ashley,but her arch rival, that cheap tramp Melly, has her man.
So, she does what any Southern Belle would do, she takes the baby, packs UP her clothes, drags her slave along – there are black people in this film, BTW – goes to Atlanta, and moves in with Melly, and pretends to be her BFF.
To make a 700 page novel and four hour long movie ‘long story short’: wawh, death, Rhett Butler coming to Atlanta making passes at Scarlett, dancing with her at the bazaar, Sherman, fire, explosions, refugee to Tara, privation, hardship, sneakiness, back stabbing, and Scarlett shoots a Yankee soldier in the face. We all cheered!
Oh, yes, there’s a whore too. She’s really cool, and her name is Belle. Rhett loves her as well, he’s a ‘playah’ after all.
The ‘wawh‘ ends, Scarlett steals her sister’s boyfriend, whom she refers to as an “old maid in britches’, because she needs $300 to pay the taxes on her Daddy’s plantation, Tara, down the Decatur Road in Clayton County, Jawja.
Hubs # 2 gets killed at a KKK rally. Rhett has enough, tells Scarlett he loves her and insists that she marry him. She, a little tipsy from the funeral, says yes. He leaves town, comes back with monster bling from Europe, a complete wardrobe for Scarlett, and presents for her family.
Atlanta, once again, and not for the last time, I might add, is scandalized!
Meanwhile, back at the tacky, ornate, over decorated house Rhett builds for Scarlett, she pines for Ashley, still pretends to be Melly’s best friend, makes waves, causes trouble, breaks tradition, smashes rules, pisses off the old bats who run Atlanta – yet another reason why she’s my hero, since Atlanta still has some serious assed old bats – , and in general ‘effs’ UP.
Rhett and Scarlett’s child dies, which is really sad, their marriage is destroyed, Melly dies, sad again, Scarlett realizes at last that Melly really was her BFF, that Ashley is a total spineless wuss, and that Rhett really did love her and she’s thrown it all away.
Rhett leaves Melly and Ashely’s house, goes home packs a bag, and when Scarlett declares her love for him, he tells her it’s too late and that he doesn’t ‘give a damn’, and walks out into the fog.
Oh my, I need to go apologize to Margaret Mitchell! But probably not anymore than Alexandra Ripley should!
